"Extreme Couponing" can be Extremely Unhealthy

Chuckle #470 | October 19th, 2011
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The tense, skinny blond chewed nervously on her thumb as the checkout girl rang up the last of 387 Tic Tac containers. The final total was $683.67 and included 50 jars of pickle relish. The crowd behind the register gasped. The blond took a deep breath and tried to act shocked.

The camera panned to the checkout girl who, on cue, paused momentously before asking, “Do you have any coupons?”

If at this point you aren’t perched at the edge of your couch and practically peeing in your pants from suspense, then maybe the new reality show Extreme Couponing is not for you.

It isn’t easy to make a TV show out of an activity that lacks conflict of any kind. To heighten the drama, the director has the coupon “star” hand over their coupons in three separate piles. This allows them to drag out the most entertaining part of the show (which by the way, is NOT when they fill two entire shopping carts with sanitary pads and tampons.) The real excitement comes from watching the register “ka-ching” in reverse, from $683.87 down to $21.62. Heady stuff.

Don’t get me wrong. I use coupons a lot. There is nothing I like better than getting free tampons, especially if they are the right brand, the right size, and feature the old style cardboard “injector”. None of that new-fangled plastic for me.

I totally respect the ingenuity of extreme couponers. They put a lot of time and effort into acquiring expensive packaged goods for mere pennies. The brand managers at Proctor and Gamble must be horrified and yet, oddly titillated.

Seriously, if I were addicted to Tic Tacs – which are expensive for a relatively tiny mint - I too would go out of my way to stockpile 1000 containers if I could get them for a nickel each.

On the other hand, many of the folks who appear on Extreme Couponing seem to be walking a fine line between unhealthy stockpiling and outright hoarding. They’ll move their kids into a tent in the backyard while racks and racks of laundry detergent and two liter bottles of orange soda take over the rest of the house.

There is something slightly terrifying about how people behave on this show.

I think there is more than just a little OCD (and brand brainwashing) involved when a person feels compelled to buy 200 bottles of Windex when they could make the same amount of glass cleaner with a gallon of vinegar.

Then there are the health issues to consider.

The Department of Health and Human Services is at this very moment battling a bizarre outbreak of scurvy among school children. Could this be related to the fact that newspaper inserts rarely include coupons for fresh fruits or vegetables while Devil Dogs and Kraft Macaroni and Cheese are practically free?

Most people would normally avoid foods that are 90% fat or have enough sodium to melt a slug, but triple coupons somehow pervert and distort the marketplace.

I see people achieving some pretty impressive savings on Extreme Couponing, but at what price? I wouldn’t feed most of that stuff to my kids unless I secretly wanted to get rid of them.

Now there’s a thought. If I offed the kids I’d be saving on more than just my grocery bill. Like on college tuition for example.

Maybe Extreme Couponing is onto something after all. I might tune into the season finale just to see if any of the kids on the show survive living outside all winter on a diet of Twinkies and Coke.
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